Oprah speaks
Love her or hate her (I love her because I am her, minus a few billion $$), Oprah speaks to my heart when she talks about her struggles with weight, spirituality, finding a way to live successfully without excess food:
"I was standing on the front porch of my new home in California, the one I've worked on for three years as a gift to myself. I was looking at the mountains folding over on themselves and my yard filled with oak, pine, and redwood trees, thinking how this property is really graced by God, a promised land, and I suddenly said to myself: I do not want to be an unhealthy fat person standing in the doorway of this beautiful house. . . .
"So after many years of my weight going up and down—of saying on Monday 'I'm going to do it' and by Wednesday failing—I realized that the commitment to do well and to be well is a lifetime of choices that you make daily. The space to live in is not 'I'll try.' Not 'I want to.' Not 'I really want to.' It's 'I have decided.' . . .
"I've known all of this intellectually for a while, but last year the click came as an emotional and spiritual awakening. Now I live straight through the center of myself, which means telling the truth about everything. No more games. Every day I make the choice to live as well as I possibly can. And that starts with exercise. I do not have the genetics or the body type to function without it. So I stopped vacillating between 'Maybe I'll work out' and 'Maybe I'll take the day off.' I do it the way I bathe. And guess what: I do not hate it anymore. Don't get me wrong—you won't see me jumping up and down going, 'Oh, jeez, exercise is great,' but I no longer dread it. And that is nothing less than a revolution. . .
"With food, what works for me is treating refined and processed carbohydrates as though they are poison. . . . The biggest imbalance for many of us, though, is in the amount of thought we devote to food and weight. If I could add up the time I've spent worrying about what I just ate and what I shouldn't have just eaten, feeling guilty about it, and getting down on myself about why I'm not where I want to be, it would probably be several years of my life. And you can't get those years back. . . .
"I am not wasting any more time. And by no longer dwelling on all of these negative thoughts, I have opened up a whole new energy field for myself. It's amazing. I feel as if I'm living on a higher frequency, a stronger, brighter charge. The voltage got turned up. People stop me all the time and ask, 'What have you done to look so different?' This is the answer. . . .
"I want you to think about why you're overweight. But let me save you a lot of time: The reason you're fat is that you give more to other people than you give to yourself, because you don't feel you're worth it. The bottom line is, you cannot lose weight until you make yourself enough of a priority to do the things you need to do to make it happen. People always say, 'I'm too busy to exercise,' 'I have to be there for the kids,' 'I've got too much work.' You know what? These are little lies you're telling yourself, and they go against the laws of self-preservation, because the more whole and healthy you are, the more fully you can give to other people. And that's the truth. I'm not asking anyone to abandon her children. I'm just saying: Put yourself at the top of the list so you can treat your body with as much care and respect as you'd give to someone else's—and when anyone needs something from you, you will be operating from a full cup."
The whole thing is here. Love it.
"I was standing on the front porch of my new home in California, the one I've worked on for three years as a gift to myself. I was looking at the mountains folding over on themselves and my yard filled with oak, pine, and redwood trees, thinking how this property is really graced by God, a promised land, and I suddenly said to myself: I do not want to be an unhealthy fat person standing in the doorway of this beautiful house. . . .
"So after many years of my weight going up and down—of saying on Monday 'I'm going to do it' and by Wednesday failing—I realized that the commitment to do well and to be well is a lifetime of choices that you make daily. The space to live in is not 'I'll try.' Not 'I want to.' Not 'I really want to.' It's 'I have decided.' . . .
"I've known all of this intellectually for a while, but last year the click came as an emotional and spiritual awakening. Now I live straight through the center of myself, which means telling the truth about everything. No more games. Every day I make the choice to live as well as I possibly can. And that starts with exercise. I do not have the genetics or the body type to function without it. So I stopped vacillating between 'Maybe I'll work out' and 'Maybe I'll take the day off.' I do it the way I bathe. And guess what: I do not hate it anymore. Don't get me wrong—you won't see me jumping up and down going, 'Oh, jeez, exercise is great,' but I no longer dread it. And that is nothing less than a revolution. . .
"With food, what works for me is treating refined and processed carbohydrates as though they are poison. . . . The biggest imbalance for many of us, though, is in the amount of thought we devote to food and weight. If I could add up the time I've spent worrying about what I just ate and what I shouldn't have just eaten, feeling guilty about it, and getting down on myself about why I'm not where I want to be, it would probably be several years of my life. And you can't get those years back. . . .
"I am not wasting any more time. And by no longer dwelling on all of these negative thoughts, I have opened up a whole new energy field for myself. It's amazing. I feel as if I'm living on a higher frequency, a stronger, brighter charge. The voltage got turned up. People stop me all the time and ask, 'What have you done to look so different?' This is the answer. . . .
"I want you to think about why you're overweight. But let me save you a lot of time: The reason you're fat is that you give more to other people than you give to yourself, because you don't feel you're worth it. The bottom line is, you cannot lose weight until you make yourself enough of a priority to do the things you need to do to make it happen. People always say, 'I'm too busy to exercise,' 'I have to be there for the kids,' 'I've got too much work.' You know what? These are little lies you're telling yourself, and they go against the laws of self-preservation, because the more whole and healthy you are, the more fully you can give to other people. And that's the truth. I'm not asking anyone to abandon her children. I'm just saying: Put yourself at the top of the list so you can treat your body with as much care and respect as you'd give to someone else's—and when anyone needs something from you, you will be operating from a full cup."
The whole thing is here. Love it.
Labels: addiction, eating disorders, weight loss
posted by BigAssBelle at 12:20 PM
3 Comments:
What is more inspiring than their stories are our own! They are no different than we were when we made the decision to slim down and become healthier. Sometimes other people have more publicity or a format for encouraging others for the betterment of everyone, and like you are doing here in your blog I hope I am doing in mine.
:O)
Yeah, I like that. The decision to lose weight. We've all been at the point that oprah came to. and I've also yo yo'd like she has and tried to understand the 'why' of it. Why had I let myself eat my way up to too high of a weight. I've figured out some of it and giving to others more than yourself is one of the reasons. The rest of it such as emotional eating and not listening to my body when it said I wasn't hungry is still and ongoing battle. Thanks for the post. Have a good week.
Wow. That was great. I have my issues with Ms. Winfrey, but for the most part, I think she's full of good stuff. THAT was awesome.
Glad I found your site. Thanks again. Seems most of my comments here end with thanking you. How about that? :)
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